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Visit and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Darlington, County Durham, the “cradle of railways”. In Bank Top station are Locomotion Number One, George Stephenson's early engine, standing on two original rails, and the 1845 model locomotive, Derwent. John Dobbin's painting of the opening of the first public railway, the Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees, on 27 September 1825 hangs in the Art Gallery. Stephenson's genius and the financial backing of Edward Pease, a public-spirited Quaker businessman, made Darlington the important rail centre that it was. British Rail closed the locomotive engineering shops in 1966, thus ending a historic chapter in the town's life. Originally an Anglo-Saxon settlement on the River Skerne, it became a lively market town with a textile industry even before the railway age dawned.

Darlington's Town Hall clock tower, given by Edward Pease, rises over the sloping market place. On the opposite side is the spire of St Cuthbert's, sharp as a needle. This is one of the most important Early English churches in the North. It was built by Bishop Pudsey about 1192 and, except for the early l4th-century aisle windows and crossing tower, exhibits little of a style later than 1250. The woodwork includes medieval stalls with misericords alive with heads, angels, monsters and branches. This is the home of the Northern Echo, the first halfpenny paper in England when it began publication in 1869. Its most famous editor was W. T. Stead, who was in charge from 1871 until 1880.